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Mission Impossible
What makes a good leader? A good leader is difficult to find nowadays. Being a leader, a true leader requires certain skills that not many can demonstrate. First of all, a good leader should have strong moral and ethical principles. He shouldn’t be fake. A good leader is transparent. He does what he says and… Continue reading
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My house is under siege
Where can you reduce clutter in your life? Today’s prompt by WordPress is a good one. It addresses my nagging feeling that I probably should declutter my house. There are books, books everywhere. I have a library upstairs, that has all the academic books I used to write my PhD (a lot), books on different… Continue reading
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Tsar Nicholas II
Tsar Nicholas II’s reign (1894-1917) is marked by many contradictions, both in Russia and outside of Russia, often portraying him as an evil man, which wasn’t the truth. During his reign the tsar took many initiatives to improve both internal and external affairs of Russia, that he deeply loved and cared for. He strongly believed… Continue reading
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Physical exercise obviously
What part of your routine do you always try to skip if you can? The other day the WordPress in its prompt asked the following question: What part of your routine do you always try to skip if you can? I found it funny as I start my morning with the usual dilemma: do my… Continue reading
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What principles define how you live?
On Kindness To acquire a sense of life, one needs to live a life full of meaning. And each path in life asks one to abide by certain principles. They can be found in the Bible, and so I won’t reflect on them, but I would like to explore a bit the concept of a… Continue reading
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Black page in history. Princess Anastasia
Princess Anastasia was a Grad Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna, born on the 18th of June in 1901 in Russia. She was executed by Bolsheviks on the 17th of July 1918, together with her family. Her dad, Nicholas II, was a Tsar of Russia. The tragic event happened after the horror of the Russian Revolution in 1917,… Continue reading
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I miss my mother
We used to argue all the time with my mum. It is often the case in a close mother/daughter relationship. My mum had a big temper, and I couldn’t stop and learn not to provoke her unnecessary. She would jump, put her fists into the air, grab her keys and say that she wouldn’t come… Continue reading
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The Scream
Let’s have a look at another painting in relation to ‘madness’ by Edvard Munch, named ‘’The Scream’’. There are a lot of interpretations of this painting, including the one that accuses the painter of drawing ‘anxiety’. I disagree (anxiety was just one aspect of his ordeal). Munch drew this panting after his sister had been… Continue reading
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Mental Asylum
On the painting called La Salpêtrière (1795), Tony Robert-Fleury depicts how ‘madness’ was dealt with during the age of enlightenment. The ‘mad elements’ of the society were institutionalized in asylums, together with criminals. If you had nothing better to do on a Sunday, you could go to the asylum and watch the ‘mad’ for a… Continue reading
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What is Happiness?
What are 5 everyday things that bring you happiness? Happiness, the concept of it, has been imposed on us, here in the West, as some sort of a guru mantra that could solve all our problems. In reality, however, it is pretty much impossible. We can get these glimpses of occasional happiness, but they are… Continue reading
About Me
I am a doctor of philosophy, a university lecturer, and a lover of cats, fine wine, dancing, theatre, and human eccentricity. I was born in the Soviet Union (Moscow). I am fluent in four languages, and have spent all my adult life studying (except from 18 to 19) working and living throughout Western Europe. Despite a surname-Netchitailova- that translates from Russian into English as “unreadable”, my greatest passions in life are reading and writing. My personal struggles have made me appreciate the manifestations of weirdness that exist everywhere.